.er
Page twenty-eight
DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE
THE FUTURE OF JEWRY ABROAD
can Jewry must not overlook the pres- will, a greater calamity will b efa
ll us
ent. It must not withhold its aid yet
than if we had been left without
An Interview With Israel Herbert Levinthal, Rabbi Brooklyn Jewish Center. for a while. Just as repeatedly as I breed!'
heard expression of thanks to Amer-
"The work of the Central R•ief is
ica, so did I hear the pitiable plea: helping to keep alive the nil
of the
'Urge American Jewry not to forsake Jew; and in this work, I kn•.i., • Amer-
us now!' Let them not stop uphold. ican Jewry will gladly lend a helping
shop 'Ohel' (Mausoleum) that covers ing our cultural institutions; if they hand.'
it. I was anxious to see with niy own
eyes that which I had heard ever
since I was a child—how from this
grave there grows a tree in the form
of a human creature, with arms find
legs and mouth and eyes. The Polish
soldiers, during the recent war, have
almost destroyed this tree, but enough
of it yet remains to have evoked my
SODA—CANDIES-110T LUNCHES
wonder and amazement. Legend in
,Vilna has it that this tree grew of
Home Made Candies—Ice Cream Soda and Fancy Sundaes
itself—that no mortal hand had ever
And Dandy Luncheon—Special Noonday luncheon 50,
planted it—that the spirit of the great
martyr has produced this tree over
Fancy Box Candy at Reasonable Prices.
his own grave as a living protest to
the Poles who refused of allow the
Where
'A'I.ere
Jews to place a monument over it.
Taste
120 EAST KEARSLEY STREET
I sin
"Ilowever you may accept or inter-
Tells
On Your Way to the Postoffic e
11111
pret the legend, to me that tree was a
living interpretation of East Eu-
ropean Jewry. The Jew in Poland
and Russia may be burnt, tortured and
massacred, yet, like this tree, he is
unconquerable and indestructible.
Though laid low, he rises again and,
like this tree, draws sap even from his
own grave."
"This is the impression I received
as a result of my visits to the Jewish
communities of Warsaw and \Vilna
525 S. Saginaw
during the past summer. Thanks to
the generosity of their American
Men's Wear and Luggage
brothers, the people are gradually
EXCLUSIVE AGENTS FOR
coming to their own once more. Wher-
ever I went I heard the heartiest ap-
INDESTRUCTO TRUNKS—WHEARY-BURGE
preciation expressed to American
CUSHION TOP WARDROBES—LIKELY LUGGAGE
Jewry for having helped to save the
Jews of Poland from utter destruc-
tion. "We shall never forget the
American Jews!' "Thank our Amer-
ican brothers!" "Give our blessing to
America!" These were the sentiments
EVERYTHING UNDER COVER
that greeted me everywhere.
"Yet, though they are gradually, and
PHONE 348
by slow stages, coming to themselves,
we dare not and must not forget them.
The important fact is that it will take
Co.
them a great deal of time before they
will be able to care entirely for their
Retail and Wholesale Lumber
spiritual needs. They may not need
our loaves and shoes, but they do need
Mill and Interior Finish Plant
our help in the maintaining of the
Torah. It is beyond their own slen-
In Connection
der abilities—financial abilities, I
mean, to maintain their Yeshivath,
E. SECOND AVE. AND P. M. TRACKS
FLINT, MICHIGAN
their schools as well as their students.
They are making earnest efforts to
help themselves. While at Wilna, I
witnessed a town-wide "Tag-Day" for
the benefit of the local school. They
CLOSED WEDNESDAY
OFFICE HOURS:
make great efforts everywhere to meet
AFTERNOONS
9 A. M. TO 5 P. M.
their ow nbudgets. People make great
EVENINGS BY APPOINTMENT
sacrifices for the cause of the young
folks, but their means are as yet woe-
fully scant and limited.
By HAROLD BERMAN
Life moves fast these days. Every
day, and every hour, practically since
the great world war brings its own
budget of news, its own surprises and
sensations. The din is practically
endless and the strain upon our nerves
continuous and almost interminable.
Every day brings its own surprises;
its own problems, its own difficulties
and its own bitterness. We are "fed
up" on news from abroad, especially
the had and unpleasant species of
news that we have been getting all
along. And therein really lies the dif-
ficulty. Man loves himself and hates
to disturb his own well-being and
comfort by an every-renewing stream
of evil tidings. We have had a surfeit
of misery and would like to get a well-
earned rest after our several years of
strenuous effort on behalf of our less-
fortunate brothers abroad.
Meanwhile, the fate of our com-
munal and educational institutions
abroad is left hanging in the balance,
suspended by a tenuous thread that is
apt to snap by the breath of every
ill-wind that bloweth in those lands
of many changes and unstable poli-
cies. These institutions, one must not
forget, have been built up, and mostly
by American effort, since the great
catastrophe that so mercilessly de-
stroyed all that the native genius and
the devotion of the people had built
up during centuries. And they are
yet too weak to stand up unaided, and
by their own effort.
Yet, if the advices regarding them
be but fragmentary and sometime
even conflicting; if the news we get is
of the most meage^ sert and contain
so little of real information to us, how
then can we he guided in action
towards them, know whether to give
or not to give, or whether the condi-
tions abroad still call for the great
renunciation and sacrifice on our part,
or whether the giving of the mere
crumbs off our table will not do? The
best course to follow is, I thought, to
meet the person—or persons—who has
seen the actual conditions with his
own eyes; has come in contact with
the Jewish leaders on the spot; has
seen the various institutions in action
and has studied their needs and their
problems.
Rabbi Levinthal Optimistic.
Israel Herbert Levinthal is the
Rabbi of the Brooklyn Jewish Center,
one of the most influential and most
active Jewish centers, situated in one
of the finest Jewish residential sec-
tions in the greatest Jewish city in
the world. Rabbi Levinthal has re-
cently returned from abroad where he
attended the Zionist Congress at
Karlsbad, and visited the more im-
portant Jewish centers of population
in Germany, Poland and Lithuania.
His experiences and observations, I
correctly surmised, ought to prove a
valuable source to the one who is
seeking light on a much-mooted sub-
ject and I, accordingly, sought him
out and put my questions to him.
To my first question—regarding his
impressions of Jewish education in
the countries that are even now re-
covering from the effects of the great
war, Rabbi Levinthal surprised me
greatly by replying in a thoroughly
optimistic vein. I naturally pressed
the Rabbi for more specific informa-
tion, desirous as I was of learning the
result of his observations in certain
specific lands and individual towns
and regions And his study of the edu-
cational institutions, old and new. I
was agreeably surprised to learn that
the Rabbi clung tenaciously to his
previously expressed opinion regard-
ing most of the educational institu-
tions that have been founded since the
war, with the sole exception, perhaps,
of the few Yeshivahs of the old type.
These schools, I gathered from the
Rabbi's talk, did not impress him as
a real earnest and broad-minded at-
tempt to stem the tide of ignorance
and assimilation, or to form a con-
nective link between the old and new
generations. However, he admitted
that he saw but few of these—not
enough to form an honest opinion by,
or to serve as a standard of compari-
son for the rest.
At the Grave of Ger Zedek.
"In the old cemetery of Wilna, I
saw," said Rabbi Levinthal, "among
the graves of the Gaon and other il-
lustrious leaders of a former day, the
grieve of Ger Zedek and the bullet
DIANA TEA ROOM
Baldwin's
RANDALL LUMBER & COAL
B. M. FUREY, D. S. C.
U. S. Jewry Saved the Torah.
If we will but give them a little more
time, then they may never again need
our help, and will be eternally grateful
to us. And I can hear testimony not
only to the excellent work that these
schools are doing, but also to the ab-
solute necessity—for the time being,
at least—of American help. The ven-
erable Wilna Rabbi, Chaim Ezer Grod-
zinsky, said to me: "American Jewry
has not only saved the body of Polish
Jewry but it has saved the Torah in
our land!" "At Warsaw I had the
rare privilege of examining the Tach-
kemoni school, a real high school in
every modern sense, containing 500
pupils. At Byalistok, I saw even a
larger school, with a greater number
of pupils and equally as modern. The
Yahneh schools for girls cover practi-
cally the entire Poland and Lithuania,
with their network of beneficent influ-
ence and achievement. They even
have women Teachers Training
Schools—something previously un-
heard of—for the proper training of
teachers for girls' schools of the fu-
ture. At Berlin, I visited Dr. Heller's
Beth Sepher Govooh' (High School)
and was deeply imnressed by what I
saw there. f beheld a new type of
Jewish student; young men with a
university education, polished and
gentlemanly in their bearing and
some of them in possession of 'Semi-
chah' (a rabbinical certificate) at-
tending the lectures. I saw in one
class-room a professor of the Berlin
University delivering a lecture on
Lessing and in the other, Dr. Heller
teaching the 'Yerushalmi.'
"Let me Add, in conclusion, that
while the sights that it was my privi-
lege to see during my visit to the old
world were encouraging in the ex-
treme as reitarde the future, Ameri.
Chiropodist and Foot Specialist
126 Pederson Bldg.
PHONE—OFFICE 4639
Capeling Steam Carpet
Cleaning Works
SEWING AND SIZING
ORIENTAL RUGS A SPECIALTY
Twenty Years Experience in Flint
1305 S. Saginaw St.
Phone 566
ABRAHAM - FOSS CO.
"TILE SPORTSMAN'S STORE"
Radio Supplies, Sporting Goods, Eastman
Photographic and Athletic Supplies.
613 South Saginaw
FLINT,
Phone
1267
Kod a ks,
Street
M1t lilt.
Org,
unt. ,
th.•
even
puts.
The
th, rr
err,
etre,
mew
Onst ,
Ii,
whic
Or95
Boni
lin
of e
AS C
lag
lead
eche
Wal
inch
dine
T
■ Iv
the
etas
den,
Hof
Agit
arti?
War
that
CF
I
F,,,
on
of
ing
the
ine
ieh
he
As
yri•
of